New Survey: 2016 Top State & Local Management Challenges
Connecting state and local government leaders
A new nationwide survey by Route Fifty and Government Business Council reveals human capital and budget issues to be the year's top state and local management challenges.
A new survey of government leaders explores the host of management challenges state and local government are working to address. Confronted with both limited resources and mounting demands, today’s organizations must tackle operational constraints while simultaneously seeking to drive modernization, augment IT capabilities, and find new and better ways to serve citizens.
The survey, conducted by Route Fifty and Government Business Council and underwritten by Grant Thornton, identifies human capital and workforce issues as the greatest challenge facing state and local organizations. Only 39 percent of respondents believe that their organization’s recruitment and hiring processes are competitive with the private sector’s – an increasingly salient concern in light of the ever-impending retirement wave. “These human capital limitations are often due to lack of workforce planning,” observes Shiva Verma, a principal with Grant Thornton’s Global Public Sector practice. “Instead of relying on a one-size-fits-all recruitment process, agencies should develop a nuanced understanding of workforce gaps and craft a corresponding strategy." In addition, state and local organizations might focus on enhancing their own marketing. While 70 percent of respondents believe their organization’s benefits and ‘job perks’ are at least on par with the private sector, many potential employees still perceive the public sector to be an unattractive place to work.
“In many cases, the public sector offers job security, attractive benefits, the ability to move up, and a very rewarding mission,” Verma says. “However, many government agencies are not doing a great job of communicating that to the younger generation.”
State and local employees also point to the budget planning process as an important organizational concern; many feel that their organizations have been unable to maintain their effectiveness in light of budget cuts and insufficient performance data. Verma stresses the need to develop longer term budgets and build oversight and performance measurement into the process. He also highlights the importance of tying budget to mission objectives: “Programs and agencies need to have clear goals for the outcomes they want to accomplish and how their investments are going to accomplish them.”
In addition to improving workforce and budget operations, the public sector is also striving to modernize the workplace and stay abreast of innovation. This increasingly comes down to finding and using agency data. Once again, Verma emphasizes aligning IT modernization with mission objectives. “Many organizations,” he points out, “invest in analytics without fully considering its value on a strategic, macro level.”
“The key to expanding the use of data is to find the right initiatives that can benefit from data usage,” says Verma. “In other words, don’t start with the data – rather, start with the key business problems that the organization must address.”
In fact, analytics could be applied to many of the challenges currently facing organizations. The state of Maryland, for instance, successfully employs performance-based management tools focused around timely information, rapid deployment of resources, responsive tactics, and continuous follow-up. In addition, several jurisdictions in the Washington, DC area have partnered together to share regional best practices in a joint analytics approach. By implementing a cohesive strategy to manage and extract value from organization data, state and local governments can derive key insights, enhance performance, and more efficiently address both bureaucratic and policy issues.
These survey findings are just highlights of Route Fifty’s recently released report: 2016 Top Management Challenges for State & Local Government. The January 2016 report includes survey data from 928 state and local employees representing all 50 states, numerous counties and municipalities, and a diverse range of mission areas. Click here to view the complete report.
This content is made possible by our sponsor. The editorial staff of Route Fifty was not involved in its preparation.
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